


The Stepbrothers-Prince: An Into the Woods Parody, Or You’re Impressed, I’m Excited

by sarasaurusrex, VanillaMelancholia



Category: Into the Woods (2014)
Genre: Cinderella's Prince is so charming, Dancing and Singing, Horseback Riding, Instructing, M/M, Princes & Princesses, Rapunzel's Prince is also so ready, Rapunzel's Prince is so done, Wooing, anything can happen in the woods, fertile gardens, if you know what I'm saying, pretty landscapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4402991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarasaurusrex/pseuds/sarasaurusrex, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMelancholia/pseuds/VanillaMelancholia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While riding horseback together and discussing the proper way to woo maidens, Cinderella’s and Rapunsel’s Princes end up losing track of their true topic… and become excited about something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stepbrothers-Prince: An Into the Woods Parody, Or You’re Impressed, I’m Excited

**Author's Note:**

> Pieced together from a short RP between the two co-authors sarasaurusrex (Rapunzel's Prince) and VanillaMelancholia (Cinderella's Prince). Despite never having expanded or finishing it, it was super fun and always makes them smile when looking back. A one-shot. 
> 
> (Yes, the grammar is "on-purposely" atrocious at times. ;D )

Once upon a time, in a fanfiction quite close actually, there lived, in a large, beautiful castle, a handsome prince. And with him, the handsome prince's younger stepbrother.

"Dear, younger brother," the younger prince's older stepbrother slapped a hearty palm down upon his younger stepbrother's shoulder, patting him fondly in the moments that followed as he spoke to him, years-olderly and ...wiserly. "Have you completed your riding lessons for the day, then? I've heard your instructor could be far more impressed with your progress." He poked, flashing a charmingly amused grin.

"...As could your tact instructor." The younger brother sighed in annoyance, removing his riding boots dejectedly, "Really. Don't you have some princess to woo instead of criticizing me?"

"I'd expect you to be busy with a princess of your own, brother, but here you are," he sat down beside him on the castle bench. "... Alone. With your smelly feet."

The two Princes were being heckled by their father, the king, to find princesses. Especially his biological son and heir to the throne, the older, more charming of the two brothers. So much so, in fact, that they were in the midst of planning a three-day-long festival arranged to find him a bride. It was busier than usual around the castle as a result. And that only made the older prince more restless.

He sat forward, trying to steal a glance from his brother. He looked him over for several long moments. He smiled stiffly. "Oh, well. I wish both you and your feet the best of happiness." Another friendly hit to the shoulder.

"Ah ha... thank you, brother." He replied back stiffly in return, "And I you... and your hand." He smiled.

The older brother was caught in a grin... when he heard that. His smile froze. Slowly, it faded away, his head twisting in another direction.

He climbed, poised, to his feet. "Well. Perhaps you could set up your foot..." he gestured to it, "...and your mouth." A pleasant, forced smile, returning his gazes to his brother. "They make a lovely couple."

That finally seemed to put a smile on the younger brother's face, "Oh? Is that so?" He laughed, leaning back to look at the eldest prince, "How about my foot and your mouth... why don't we set them up?"

"Because, I believe, and this is quite true," he smiled, touching his lips with a tilt of his head. "The waiting list for my mouth is miles long, dear brother. There are hundreds of maidens lined up, awaiting its sweet promises..." He seemed lost in the silky feel of his own lips for a moment. Then he pulled his hand away, like he'd awoken from a dream. "Of course... I'd be glad to pencil your foot in for, oh, say... three years from now... If it still needs its kiss then."

The youngest watched his brother's show like he always had: in resignation. Finally, "Come now, you have time to spare. At least help me with my riding lessons, if you are so personally concerned." He argued.

"Help you?" The older prince echoed. He laughed. "And, how would I help you? Ride your horse for you, perhaps?" He walked slowly away from the younger, gliding his hands through the air smoothly as he spoke. "Because, that is the only way I can see you properly thriving on horseback." He said, clasping his hand into a fist.

The youngest watched his brother from his seat, and when he finished, he gave a big sigh, "Alright. If you think you can't do it." He proclaimed, standing up with his boots.

The older prince snapped back to the other in a lightning flash. "Now I didn't say I couldn't do it, did I?" He shot, taking quick steps back towards him again. "Put your boots back on." A wide smile. "We ride."

His face fell in surprise, "I didn't mean now, I just got off my horse." He complained in exhaustion.

"Ah, ah ah..." The older wagged his finger, clicking his tongue as he stepped even nearer, barely an inch separating them now. He leaned down, his clever expression close enough to make out every singular royal twitch. "Royalty does not complain. We must take on our challenges unhindered by petty, peasant emotion." He straightened his back, voice booming as he tipped up his chin. "Now, come! Without further complaint, brother. I'm offering my assistance; it would take a fool to overlook it. And princes are no fools." He cast a knowing look down to him, settling his fists on his hips.

The youngest looked at him skeptically for a moment, but then, "I suppose you're right." He reasoned, and sat back down to lace his riding boots, "I also suppose you'll have a princess in a few days time to lavish your attention on, teaching the royal ways. I should enjoy your hovering while I still can." He took in a breath, standing back up on his feet in front of his brother.

"Ah, yes... I suppose I will." The older said, beginning to walk towards the royal stables. "Spend time with me while you still can. But..." He spun around on his heel, still walking just as smoothly--just backwards. "Perhaps, brother, if you work had enough, you can find yourself a princess of your own at the festival. Maidens are charmed by princeliness on its own... Or... I could find the time to give you wooing lessons, too, I suppose..." He spun back around, walking forwards yet again.

He smiled, " _Wooing_ lessons?" He followed him, "From Prince Charming himself? Why, that's the opportunity of a lifetime!"

He looked over his shoulder with a smile. "It is." He confirmed quickly, turning back to front again after his comment. Seconds passed. Beats.

He turned immediately on his heel, spinning about and seamlessly walking backwards again. "It would take a fool to turn down the offer. Do you know how many have pondered the secret to my charm? The components that make it so..." He waved his hands in the air before him in smooth circles, searching for just the right word, and when he found it: "... Enticing." He snatched his fist in front of him, a strength behind his motion that was not only smooth, but powerful. His hands relaxed to his side again, still poised as he continued traversing backwards, dodging a tree smoothly without looking, as if the path they traveled were memorized to him. "Princes and commoners alike the land over would strike at the opportunity I've lain bare to you here."

The youngest brother laughed, entertained by the eldest's show. "Your charm is a curiosity, brother." He pondered, "And I do not wish to be a fool."

He smiled. "Wonderful." An assertion spoke with conviction and a tinge of victory. He spun back around again, leading the younger over a small, ornate bridge that passed a babbling stream, the stables in sight. "After we conclude your riding today, we shall begin with our first lesson."

"Have you no notion of rest, brother?" The youngest scoffed a smile, "I should be glad a maiden will soon be taking up all of your attention... I hardly have the energy to withstand the full brunt of it myself."

"Ah, that's your first mistake," he continued on, as if he'd meant to all along. "A prince always has energy. There is no question in the matter." A smile, opening the stable doors for them... and holding it for his brother to pass through first. "... dearest prince."

He eyed him strangely as he passed, "Then perhaps with all the riding and wooing and bounds of energy that await me, I should set out to find a maiden myself." He proclaimed, "...It will give me something to do during your three day festival of... woo-ery."

"Perhaps you should." The older prince replied, not fazed at all by the other's response to his gesture. He walked in fluidly behind him, keeping the door open as they approached their horses. "A maiden won't appear to you herself, trumpeted as she enters in golden dress and slippers." A hearty laugh as he snatched his riding gloves off the wall, slipping them on. "You must be the one to seek her out. To find her as she waits for you." He paused before his brother's horse. "Her prince."

The youngest bobbed his head along with every word, nodding like he'd heard it a hundred times over. He grabbed his riding gloves, tugging them on, "I suppose I'll just ride out on my horse and stumble into her, then?" He jested, "Maybe she's just sitting in a tower in the middle of the woods waiting for me!"

"Maybe she is!" The older joked back, opening the stable door and leading out his brother's white horse, moving to the bridle and saddle on the wall as he continued. "See, you will never be certain until you look for her, will you? She could be out there right now, wondering where it is that you are... and just why it is that you're taking so long." He plopped the saddle down atop the back of the horse, beginning to strap on the bridle. "Promptness is almost as important as charm itself in cases like these." The bar clicked against the horse's teeth. He looked back at his stepbrother with a knowing look. "... Almost."

The youngest visibly sighed, missing his point by miles. He settled in for more lessons as he helped dress his horse, giving her a pat on the nose  
when they were done, "I will be promptly lost in those woods before I have your charm, brother." He looked at him, taking the reigns.

He took the reins right back. "You won't be lost in the woods or lost in charming after I'm done with you." Immediately, he began to walk towards the stable doors, leading the horse and his stepbrother out. "Princes don't get lost! ...Others lose the prince."

"Yes, of course." The youngest abided, considering it, "If you can never get lost, then, tell me, where are we going?" He strolled on the other side of the horse.

The stable doors rattled as they closed behind them yet again. "You're simply finding your destination, wherever that may be. Whether it was your intended target or not." He asserted, leading the horse to the start of a trampled-down pathway, bald, over-trodden dirt scuffing beneath their feet. "Now," he began, standing back. "Look at him... Magnificent creature; he's ready to be ridden again after only just being taken out. Hm..." He seemed lost in thought for a moment. But only for a moment. "Now, mount him, brother! We shall begin."

He took his stepbrother's advice. Exhausted, but eager to prove something for the day. He stepped up into the stirrup, swinging a leg over and getting into position, taking hold of the reigns, "Ready, brother." He breathed.

Not a breath had passed between them before, smoothly, the younger's foot had been swept out of the stirrup.

A clap of a sound, a warm body sitting certainly behind the first, scooting the younger one closer to the saddle horn before him. Arms folded around the younger's waist securely, holding his back to a crisply-shirted front. "Onward!" The older's voice rang out surely at the younger's ear, relinquishing the stirrup yet again to the younger one, ready to ride.

The youngest hadn't quite known what his stepbrother was planning to do from the ground, but he didn't have to think about it for too long. Too used to his brother's presence, he didn't even flinch when he joined him. He just repositioned himself comfortably, although a little bitterly, suddenly feeling very much like the youngest again. "Really brother." He scoffed, taking up the reigns with the upward trot of the horse, "I'm getting too old for lessons like this. What can you not teach me from your own horse?" He inquired. Although the youngest's horse didn't mind the extra weight, or that they were off onto the trail for a second time that day.

"Ah, lessons like that are so ineffective." He answered from behind him, his voice close. "That a trainer would offer lessons like that when so much can yet be taught in close proximity... 'Tis a shame father offers such a hefty salary to attain such sub-par standard of instruction. Now," without even asking first, the older thudded his heels against the sides of the horse firmly, his hips thumping into the back of the younger's starkly with the brunt of the motion. "Your horse, he aches to be ridden. So ride him!" Another thump, that time his hips practically colliding into the younger's backside, pushing him forward.

The horse reared into a canter and youngest's face fell in surprise. Not at the motion of the horse, but at the eldest, bumping into him, hips and all. Yeah, they were getting too old for this, or... whatever.

Somehow, above the clatter of hooves on padded ground, the youngest managed to call out (for perhaps the hundredth time), "She's a girl!" over his shoulder, grabbing steady hold of the reigns as the rush of the run began to take him.

"That she is!" The older responded, holding tight to the younger prince, hugging himself in close enough that his body was practically rolling into him from behind with every bounce of the horse's ride. "You'll find her one day, brother! Your maiden!" He shouted back over the wind and hoof clatter, hearing just what he wanted to hear. "You just need to keep an eye out for her." He patted the younger's chest firmly in reconciliation, gripping in again with what, under any other circumstance, was certainly a grope.

All the youngest heard was the rushing of the wind (out of the eldest's mouth), although he felt a bit more than that. It was nice, like when they'd ride together when they were younger, except... "You have such faith in this mysterious maiden of mine." He commented, voice a little strained. Although he was riding atop a near galloping horse.

"For I know she will come," he answered confidently. "Just as mine will. So long as we keep our wits about us and see what is in front of us, all will happen as it rightly should. Now..." Another, firm couple of clips to the horse's sides, urging her on faster. "Faster!"

The horse gave a small rear then broke into a gallop, running spiritedly down the path, as the eldest continued to spiritedly bump into the youngest's backside.

He swallowed, righting himself in the stirrups and lifting himself a bit, letting the oldest hold him about the waist, "Faster to where? Where are we going?" He called over his shoulder, nearly in the eldest's lap every time he bounced.

Actually--he was, in fact, in the eldest's lap every time he bounced. He held fast to the younger's waist, tight enough that he wouldn't stir as they galloped down the path, which also had the side effect of sliding him forward, right under the other prince. So every quick bounce of the horse had the younger one slamming into the older one's lap, time and time again, the older far from moving since he was secure enough as it was. "We are going wherever it is that your horse takes us... Now ride!" Bounce. " _Ride!_ " Bounce.

The youngest scoffed a smile into the wind, warming up to the ride as the adrenaline pumped through him, a carefree excitement taking over that the oldest had always been able to instill in him. He didn't even mind bumping into his lap. The horse seemed to notice it was an aimless trip, and began taking them down the youngest's most familiar paths, off the main road and through streams and glens, the sun shining through the trees.

The speed at which they were riding, and the way that the younger one was handling the horse, were all impressive to the older--surprisingly. A smile spread on his face, his grip tightened around the younger's waist, blood pumped through him, flushing him, engorging him, erecting him--

Ah.

"Stop your horse, brother!" He screamed all at once, tightening his grip on the younger prince with intending vigor.

The youngest's face fell in surprise as the oldest shouted and tightened his grip, making him pull back on the reigns so the horse came to a staggering halt. She pawed indignantly at the ground as the youngest turned over his shoulder to inspect his stepbrother, sitting on the back of the horse in the middle of a foresty glen, "What? What is it?" He eyed him frantically.

The older looked at the younger, his eyes lighting up, his face open to honesty. An understanding coming over him as he sat there, middle of the saddle... with the younger prince sat firmly upon an undeniable ... sensation.

The lull of woodwinds floated in on the breeze as the older prince stared certainly at the younger.

_I'm impressed._  
_Can't you tell?_  
_Can't you feel it?_  
_I'm impressed!_  
_I can't deny it or conceal it._

_When you snapped up the reins,_  
_you seemed put to shame,_  
_but then when it came,_  
_you rode me all the same--_

_I'm impressed._

_And excited._

The older prince pressed his hips up into the younger's bottom, smiling with a chuckle.

The younger gasped, much like his pawing horse. He looked back at him strangely, standing up in the stirrups as he took a breath, unable to fight a slowly growing smile:

_I'm impressed._  
_Can't you tell?_  
_Can't you feel it?_  
_I'm impressed!_  
_Though I try to conceal it._

_When you forced me to ride,_  
_you wouldn't let me hide,_  
_you stood by my side,_  
_took me on with pride..._

_I'm impressed._

He looked away, glancing down before eying the glade strangely.

_And excited..._

The older's eyes lit up as the younger prince rang those last words through the air. And in response, the older one snapped his hands onto the younger one's hips, pulling himself up precisely onto his feet (the younger’s face snapping back in response). The older balanced in the saddle as he continued to hold that waist before him.

_You're impressed,_  
_I'm excited._

He rolled his hips into the backside of the other prince yet again. His hands snapped up to the younger's shoulders as he slipped his face in beside his.

_You've learned so well,_  
_I don't feel slighted._

He leapt down off the horse's saddle in a single motion, landing squarely on his feet, snapping back to face the younger with a smile.

_My expectation's rising,_  
_as my image of you hardens._  
_Do you think I could be lying_  
_when I have such wealthy gardens_

He gestured before his hips in a fluid gesture, pumping his hips into the air.

_Of... thought._

Before bringing his finger up to his temple with a wink. Turning away fluidly.

The younger merely scoffed and grinned, watching him leap down, making gestures that were somehow both crude and elegant. And as those last words filled the glade, the youngest laughed. "Brother, you jest..." But then, he too swung off his horse:

_You're impressed,_  
_You're excited,_  
_But I know_ _I'm not benighted..._

He stepped to his brother's back, and certain he'd gotten his attention, he turned around as well, fluid as a stream.

_I know better than not_  
_how your spirit does toil,_  
_but your gardens of thought_  
_are grown from fertilized soil..._

He turned around again with an intrigued, but knowing smile, "You make me curious, brother..."

The older chuckled knowingly, swinging his arm in the air as he sang in a sweet, ringing baritone: 

_So let the wooing lesson begin._

And so, as the two handsome princes settled down on the springy floor of the woodland glade...

_Ah…_

_Ahh!_

…their charming melody and lively harmony…

_Ahh…_

_Ahhhhh!_

…rose up into the air and fluttered pleasantly through the fragrant pines and furs surrounding their bed of dewy grass and budding flowers. The horse stared and gaped as the older prince’s extraordinary wooing prowess was proven again and again… and again and again and again, deep, deep, deep into the crazy, harmony-filled night.

_Ahhh…_

_Ahhhhhhhh~!_

 

THE END

(Anything can happen in the woods...)


End file.
